NBA GMs: Brooklyn Most Improved Team

The Brooklyn Nets are the NBA’s Most Improved Team and the Miami Heat will repeat as NBA Champions, according to NBA.com’s annual survey of the league’s top front office executives.

The survey, released earlier this week, polled the 30 NBA general managers for their thoughts on 57 different topics, from projected individual award winners to subjective labels like Most Improved to their pick to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy next June.

In the poll, 62.1 percent of the league’s GMs named Brooklyn as the NBA’s Most Improved Team, but the group collectively felt that on both a team and individual level, it was the Lakers (who finished tied for second in the Most Improved category) whose off-season acquisitions will make the most noise.

Los Angeles garnered 86.2 percent of the vote on which team made the best overall moves this summer – with Brooklyn’s 6.9 percent finishing a distant second – and the Lakers’ pickups of Dwight Howard (70 percent) and Steve Nash (20 percent) led the way on the individual front, where Brooklyn’s trade for Joe Johnson and re-signing of Deron Williams finished fourth and fifth respectively.

In terms of team accomplishment, 13.3 percent of the survey pegged the Nets to win the Atlantic Division title, a total that tied them for second (with the Knicks) behind Boston’s 66.7 percent margin – but it was the Heat who were the overwhelming favorite to hold a second straight parade.

Overall, 70 percent of those who answered the survey picked Miami to repeat as NBA Champions, and the Heat were also as unanimous a choice as a team can be in that poll when it came to picking the Eastern Conference Champions; Miami received 29 out of 30 votes in that category, and given that GMs weren’t allowed to vote for their own team or personnel (leading the Heat’s front office to vote for Boston), that’s a landslide that can’t get any bigger.

Other Brooklyn items of note: The Nets’ acquisition of Johnson finished tied for fourth (10.7 percent) as the summer’s “most surprising move,” Deron Williams tied for third (6.9 percent) in the category of “best passer,” Reggie Evans tied for third (6.9 percent) in voting for the league’s “toughest player,” and both Evans and Kris Humphries received mention among the best offensive rebounders.

Also, rookie import Mirza Teletovic (6.9 percent, tied for fourth) was listed among the top international players likely to have a breakout season, former Net Nenad Krstic received votes as the top international player not in the NBA, and Humphries received somewhat of a dubious honor, earning one vote as the player who “makes the most of limited ability.”